ISLAMABAD: The government is urged to devise an integrated policy framework to make use of green hydrogen in order to overcome the energy shortfall, minimize reliance on imported fuels and realize its commitment to producing greener sources of energy.
Green hydrogen depends on availability of pure water and renewable energy. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), hydrogen will play an important role in the global energy transition.
The energy watchdog said in 2020 hydrogen and hydrogen-based fuels accounted for less than 0.1% of the total global energy consumption. This is expected to grow to 10% by 2050.
Talking to WealthPK, Muhammad Arif Goheer, Scientific Officer at the Pak-NDC Secretariat Global Change Impact Studies Center of the Ministry of Climate Change, said, “Low carbon development is the biggest challenge these days for the world in the context of mitigating climate change. In this regard, hydrogen is often seen as an attractive solution because whether it is used in a fuel cell with air to produce electricity or burnt to produce heat, the only by-product is water.”
“Few challenges in general and for Pakistan related to hydrogen fuel include, but are not limited to, viable cost, hydrogen storage, purity requirement for hydrogen, infrastructure, safety, and environmental concerns.”
Mr. Goheer said, “Green hydrogen can be a critical enabler of the global transition to sustainable energy and net-zero emission economies. There is an unprecedented momentum around the world to fulfill hydrogen’s longstanding potential as a clean energy solution.”
“It is not likely that hydrogen fuel may replace fossil fuels in the very near future because the relevant infrastructure does not exist. Unless the requisite infrastructure is there, there will be no demand for green hydrogen resulting in less/no interest of energy producers in the said enterprise,” he said.
Mr Goheer said an MoU was signed last year for setting up a facility to produce approximately 150,000kg per day of green hydrogen from a 400MW capacity plant using energy from wind and solar farms.
“Sindh offers a potential of 50,000MW of wind and 10,000MW of solar power resource. The project aims to drive down the cost of green hydrogen below US$2.00 per kg once operational at full capacity. This cost can be lower when these resources are used as captive power for producing hydrogen. However, till now, a roadmap for hydrogen at the national level or a policy for introduction of hydrogen in our fuel supply chain does not exist. Pakistan needs to develop a roadmap for production of green hydrogen and development of relevant infrastructure for consumption,” Mr Goheer told this agency
Production of hydrogen from renewable resources is very costly compared to the fossil fuels. The cost of green hydrogen, according to the IEA’s Global Hydrogen Review 2021, currently ranges between US$2 and US$8 per kilogram. This is not competitive with grey hydrogen, which costs between US$0.5 and US$1.7 per kg to produce. This price difference, the agency said, is currently a major barrier to the more widespread adoption of green hydrogen, but it expects this gap will be reduced over time with the falling renewable energy prices and advancement in technologies.
